


won't you (come see about me)

by middlecyclone



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Attempted Seduction, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 15:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlecyclone/pseuds/middlecyclone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott thinks that Danny needs to stop dating an evil werewolf. Scott also thinks that the best way to accomplish this is to force Stiles to seduce him away from said evil boyfriend. Stiles doesn't exactly agree with this plan, but he's not really protesting either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	won't you (come see about me)

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to [Tara](http://rosemaries.tumblr.com) for being an amazing beta and putting up with my lateness, as well as my inability to understand dialogue tags. 
> 
> This fic was written for Teen Wolf Bigbang, and thecheekydragon came through at the last minute and was a fabulous pinch-hitter who made some absolutely gorgeous art for this fic, which can be seen [here](http://thecheekydragon.livejournal.com/99478.html). 
> 
> Title is, of course, from Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds, because I am self-indulgent, and this fic is my attempt to make Teen Wolf as much like an '80s romantic comedy as possible.

 “Stiles, I need you to do me a favor,” Scott says decisively, looking earnestly at Stiles from across the lunch table. Stiles shoves another handful of fries in his mouth and raises a skeptical eyebrow at his friend.

“I’m gonna need you to explain more fully before I agree to anything,” he tells Scott. “I absolutely refuse to talk to Peter Hale again. I hate that dude.”

“Everyone hates him,” Scott says, face wrinkled in distaste. “And you don’t have to talk to Peter, okay, I’m asking you to do a favor, not sell your soul to the devil. What I need is for you to do something about _that_.”

Stiles follows the direction of Scott’s pointed nod to the edge of the cafeteria, where he sees Danny and Ethan sitting together, talking quietly and smiling.

 “Do what, exactly?” Stiles asks curiously. “I mean, you have to admit they’re pretty cute. And Danny is way too attractive to be single, I’m glad he’s getting some, at least.”

 “Stiles, Ethan is an evil Alpha werewolf,” Scott groans in exasperation. “Surely you can see why Danny shouldn’t really be hanging out with him.”

“I think they’re doing a lot more than hanging out, Scott-“

“Not the point, Stiles!”

“Fine, okay.” Stiles sighs grumpily, “So what do you want me to do, sabotage their relationship or something?”

“Yes, exactly,” Scott agrees enthusiastically.

“Oh my God – I was kidding, Scott!”

Scott shrugs. “Well, I’m not, okay? Danny almost _died_ when Ethan was around. That can’t happen again.”

“Didn’t Ethan save his life, though? I mean, okay, your mom did most of the actual saving, but if Ethan hadn’t been there who knows what might have happened!”

“If Ethan hadn’t been there,” Scott says darkly around a mouthful of salad, “Danny probably wouldn’t have needed to be saved in the first place. They killed Boyd, and Erica, and tried really hard to kill Derek –“

“Oh, who cares,” Stiles mutters derisively under his breath.

Scott ignores him. “And they wanted to kill me!” he finishes angrily. “They’re murderers and liars!”

“Fine, fine, okay. You have a point with that one. I’ll break them up,” Stiles concedes, swallowing the last spoonful of his chocolate pudding with as much annoyance as can be put into an action like eating chocolate pudding. “I have a plan.”

Scott looks at him skeptically. “Already?”

“Come on, Scotty boy,” he says. “You know me. I’ve always got a plan.”

Scott just stares at Stiles, whose plans have not always worked particularly well, considering.

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Okay, no, I don’t really have a plan,” he admits. “But come on! It’s going to be pretty freaking easy to convince Danny to dump Ethan. Literally all I have to do is clue him in to the fact that his boyfriend is a murderer and an evil former member of a werewolf cult. Danny’s pretty smart; I think that would convince him.”

Scott looks around, panicky. “Stiles! You can’t tell him!” he insists.

Stiles frowns. “Wait, what? Come on,” he says, “He’s got a right to know! I mean, Jesus, Scott, he almost died just a few weeks ago! Like, it would be unethical or something not to tell him.”

“The fact that he almost died a couple weeks ago is why we can’t tell him,” Scott says. “This stuff is too dangerous, okay? Boyd and Erica are dead because Derek dragged them into it without giving them the full picture. I’m not going to let that happen to anyone else.”

“I’m not suggesting we give him the bite, Scott,” Stiles says, “Obviously that would be a terrible idea. Maybe just, y’know, inform him that Ethan killed a bunch of people.” Stiles’ face freezes. “Wait, do you think Ethan wants to turn Danny?”

Scott looks horrified. “Oh God, I hadn’t even considered that,” he admits, “but it’s totally possible.” He sighs, and continues, “Look, we know that Danny figured out something important about magic in Beacon Hills. We know somebody wanted him dead. We know there’s _something_ supernatural about him – we just don’t know what.”

“But the Alpha’s wanted Danny for a reason, and it isn’t just his amazing body,” Stiles finishes. “Yeah, I got that. So _that’s_ why you’re trying to get me to stage some sort of ‘your boyfriend is a psychopathic douchebag’ intervention.” Stiles pauses, tilts his head to the side, and frowns. ”You know, we really should have had one of those last year for Lydia. Like, if we’d just debriefed her a little bit I’m pretty sure things would have turned out one hundred percent better.”

Scott sighs. “Yeah, that was a mistake,” he admits, “but it’s still too dangerous to bring Danny into all this werewolf business. We really just need to get him away from Ethan before he gets so far in we absolutely have to tell him.”

“Yeah, yeah, all right,” Stiles grumbles. “So if you’re going to veto Danny’s Big Werewolf Reveal, do you have any other alternative ideas to getting him to dump his Mighty Morphin’ Murder Twin?”

Scott shrugs. “I don’t know; tell him Ethan has a foot fetish or something. Besides, I thought you always had a plan.”

Stiles glares at him. “If I pull this off, you’re buying me fries,” he mutters.

“If you pull this off,” Scott assures him, “I’ll buy you ice cream cake.”

* * *

“Hey!” Scott hisses, “Look! Danny’s over there, alone! Go talk to him!”

They’re in the locker room after cross-country practice, because of _course_ they are. Stiles looks over to where Scott is motioning and sees Danny toweling off his short hair in front of his locker. He’s shirtless, and still fairly damp, and his sweatpants are hanging somewhat precariously off the Escherian angles of his hips. Stiles swallows.

“Scott,” he hisses back, “now? Seriously? Can’t this wait for a time when everyone is appropriately clothed?”

Scott just rolls his eyes and elbows Stiles in the ribs. It’s meant to be a joking gesture, but it actually hurts quite a bit. Scott has sharp elbows, has since he was seven years old; the bite changed some things, but when it comes down to it, Scott is still the same kid who would always share his popsicles and had joints made out of sharp angles.

Wincing slightly, Stiles ambles reluctantly over to where Danny is now leaning over and rummaging through his gym bag.

“Hey-o, Danny boy,” Stiles says, trying for casual, and failing abysmally. Danny looks at him blankly.

“What do you want, Stiles?” he asks wearily. “Why are you talking to me?”

“Wow, Danny,” Stiles says, a little offended, “Can’t a guy just chat with a friend after practice? Do I need a reason?”

Danny sighs. “Come on, Stiles. How many times do we need to go over this? We are not friends. I don’t know why you think we’re friends. We’re not.”

Stiles, who had thought that he’d been starting to win Danny over with his smile and witty repartee, is somewhat disappointed by that, but he’s not exactly surprised. He opens his mouth to inform Danny of the deep emotional wounds caused by such cruel callous words, but before he can get a word out, Danny raises a quelling eyebrow in his direction.

“And what’s more,” Danny continues, “I know you have a reason for talking to me, Stiles, because you do absolutely everything for a reason. You’ve always got an ulterior motive. And what I’m doing now is politely asking you what that ulterior motive is, because if you’re here to ask me for a favor, I’m going to ask you to get out. I can’t have anything else on my record if I want to get into CalTech, and trust me, I’m going to get into CalTech.”

Stiles blinks. Danny, it appears, is on to him. “I’m not here to ask you for technological favors,” Stiles tells him, and then admits, “I’m here to tell you to break up with your boyfriend.”

Danny looks at him, face completely blank, for one long moment, and then he laughs. “Good one, Stiles. And you’re actually here because …”

Stiles frowns. He hadn’t exactly expected this to go particularly well, but this is worse than he’d imagined. “No,” he explains slowly, “I really am here to tell you to dump Ethan. I don’t like him, and I don’t think you two should be dating.”

Danny pauses. His face gives off a mixture of surprise and irritation that definitely does not bode well for Stiles’ chances. “First of all, who I date is none of your business,” Danny snaps at Stiles. He crosses his arms angrily over his still-bare chest, and Stiles does _not_ look. “Second of all, Ethan isn’t my boyfriend. We’re hanging out, it’s … whatever.”

“Okay, fine,” Stiles says, frustrated, “Then I don’t think you should ‘hang out or whatever’ with Ethan any more.” He actually does the air quotes with his fingers, an action he immediately regrets because it feels utterly ridiculous.

“And what on Earth gives you the right to tell me what to do?” Danny retorts furiously, blessedly ignoring Stiles’ brief return to 2007 with the air quotes.

“I’m not telling you what to do!” Stiles protests futilely. “I’m just saying that Ethan’s dangerous, and you should be more careful about who you spend time with!”

“Ethan? Dangerous? Oh, come on.” Danny lets out a brief snort of laughter. It is actually astonishingly unattractive, which Stiles hadn’t thought was possible in relation to Danny. It actually comes as something of a relief that, despite his abs, Danny can still make ugly pig noises on accident sometimes. “Come on, Stiles,” Danny says, “He got beat up by Isaac Lahey. Twice. I’m pretty sure Isaac is actually half Muppet, okay? If he was so dangerous, why couldn’t he stand up to someone who looks like a cocker spaniel crossed with Kermit the frog?”

“Isaac was actually a murder suspect and a fugitive for a while last year,” Stiles huffs, “He’s pretty dangerous! Look!”

He points over at Isaac, who is currently winding three scarves around his neck, each fluffier than the last, and talking excitedly about macaroni and cheese with Scott. Despite the fact that Isaac would be perfectly capable of tearing Stiles to shreds, or Danny to shreds, for that matter, he really doesn’t look that intimidating. “He looks more like Fozzie Bear than Kermit,” Stiles observes, the words slipping out distractedly before he can stop them.

Danny snickers.

“Anyway, Ethan is dangerous,” Stiles declares, steering the conversation back to where it needs to be. “I know he is!”

“Then what proof do you have?” Danny asks.

 “Proof?” Stiles echoes blankly.

“What has Ethan actually done that could be considered dangerous to me?” Danny prompts, left eyebrow raised dangerously. “Come on, Stiles; if you’re gonna make claims like that you’ve got to be able to back them up.”

Stiles hadn’t been expecting that, though he really should have been. Oops. There are, of course, multitudes of examples of Ethan being an all-around terrible guy, but he can’t use any of them without giving away the whole werewolf thing to Danny. Stiles opens his mouth, mind whirring frantically, and hopes desperately that his brain will provide something useful. Then he starts talking. “Ethan and Aiden are part of an ex-Soviet spy ring,” he blurts. “They’re infiltrating Beacon Hills as part of an evil Communist plan to restart the Cold War. Ethan is seducing you so later on he can convince you to use your computer skills to hack into the C.I.A. and steal the codes for the nuclear bombs.”

Danny is quiet for an alarmingly long time. Stiles is beginning to worry when he notices Danny’s shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, and then his anxiety turns to annoyance.

“Okay,” he admits, “That might not be entirely true, but Ethan is dangerous! There’s no proof, but he and his creepy twin totally attacked Isaac and his friend a few weeks ago, and put them both in the hospital.”

Danny appears to actually be considering that one. But then he shakes his head. “If that story is true, then you’d be right about Ethan. But if there were any shreds of evidence at all, surely the police would be doing something about it?” He looks at Stiles accusingly.

Stiles squirms a little. “Yeah, nobody can prove anything, but Isaac says –“

Danny rolls his eyes. “I don’t trust a word Isaac says, considering he himself beat Ethan up. Twice. We’ve been over this, Stiles.”

“He’s a murder suspect in the ongoing investigation my dad’s working on,” Stiles claims, trying a different tack. “I can’t give you any more details because I don’t want to compromise the case.”

“That’s literally just not true,” Danny says. “If he was really a suspect, he’d be under arrest, not still attending high school. Come on, Stiles, you’ve got to step it up.”

“He and Aiden are in a biker gang,” Stiles invents, “They ride around on their motorcycles and beat up innocent high schoolers.”

Danny looks at Stiles, unimpressed and disbelieving. Stiles takes a brief moment to note that the story about the biker gang wasn’t entirely far from the truth, and then grits his teeth, and forces out more unconvincing lies, since half-truths don’t seem to be doing the trick. “He kicked a bunch of puppies once. Just like, five puppies sitting on the sidewalk, and he went at the poor little things with his stupid motorcycle boots.” Stiles says, not actually expecting to convince Danny of anything at this point.

Danny rolls his eyes.

“He steals lunch money from fifth graders,” Stiles adds airily. “He uses all his own money to buy cocaine and prostitutes, and then to be able to afford chicken nuggets and applesauce for lunch, he has to go down to the elementary school and rough up a bunch of ten year olds.”

Danny just snorts.

“He and his twin brother have a horrifying incestuous relationship and are actually legally married in the country of Argentina. It’s quite revolting. You don’t want to get in the middle of their forbidden love, now, do you?”

There’s no reaction from Danny about that one. But Stiles can watch Danny’s frustration grow and his patience shrink with every second that passes by. Stiles knows that he’s losing Danny, knows that his attempts to warn Danny about Ethan’s total evilness have failed completely, and knows that unless he manages to convince Danny sometime in the next fifteen seconds, he’ll have actually driven Danny further into Ethan’s arms than before. And, in all honestly, Stiles really doesn’t care at _all_ whether or not Danny keeps dating the werewolf. But it matters to Scott, and Stiles will do just about anything for Scott.

Including making an utter fool of himself, apparently. Growing increasingly desperate, Stiles opens his mouth and blurts out, in a fit of what must be temporary insanity, “Danny, you shouldn’t date Ethan because I’m in love with you.”

Danny looks at him. So does literally everyone else in the locker room, Stiles’ declaration of love having come out significantly louder than he had intended. Looking around at all the eyes fixed intently upon him, Stiles gulps nervously.

But Scott’s eyes are also fixed intently on him, and he’s beaming like the sun itself is shining out of his very pores. Stiles meets Scott’s gaze and tries to convey all the panicked desperation he’s currently feeling with his eyes.

Scott gives Stiles a thumbs up.

Stiles doesn’t have any idea where to go from here, but Scott seems to think Stiles has stumbled upon something. Stiles is a little more skeptical, but it’s not like he has any other ideas of where to go. And about thirty of his classmates are still staring at him intently, and twenty of those classmates aren’t wearing shirts.

Stiles takes a deep breath. “Yep,” he says firmly. “I am totally, definitely, one-hundred percent in love with you, Danny.”

Stiles sees Danny’s jaw tighten slightly, sees the way his eyes harden. “Bullshit,” Danny snaps, and he pulls his Beacon Hills Lacrosse hoodie over his bare chest before slamming his locker shut, picking up his gym bag, and stalking out of the locker room.

Stiles probably should have been expecting that, too. He hadn’t been, not in the slightest, but he really should have.

Shit.

Thirty pairs of eyes are still fixed on Stiles, and he shifts back and forth uncomfortably, unsure of what to do. Once more, he finds Scott’s face in the crowd, and Scott jerks his head in the direction of the door, his message clear in his eyes.

_Go after Danny_ , Scott signals, and Stiles nods. “Right,” he says out loud, “Back to business, everyone,” and he swivels on his heel, sneakers only sliding a little on the damp floor of the locker room, and makes a mad dash out the door in pursuit of Danny.

He catches up to Danny somewhere in the parking lot. Danny is throwing his stuff in the trunk of his car.

“Hey,” Stiles calls, “Hey! Danny!”

“I do not want to talk to you, Stiles,” Danny says coldly. “I’ve been pretty tolerant of your nonsense for the past year, but this is the end of that. I am not some punchline for you to laugh at, okay?”

Stiles frowns, baffled. “I – wait, what? Punchline?”

Danny turns and glares and, _wow,_ Stiles is just now realizing how much bigger Danny is than he is. Like, he’s only an inch or so taller than Stiles is, but he’s so much more muscular, and usually Danny is smiling or laughing or generally being nice. But he’s not smiling now, he’s _furious_ , and it’s only the fact that Stiles has spent the past year hanging out with werewolves who could easily tear him apart that allows him to stand his ground.

“Yes, punchline,” Danny repeats, “You don’t take me seriously at all, Stiles. You’re always laughing at everyone; you never take anyone seriously. Most people think it’s funny, or at least annoying in a charming sort of way, but I don’t. I don’t like it at _all_. I don’t like the way you set me up to hack into hospital records with your so-called cousin. I don’t like the way you ask me if I think you’re attractive, as if I’m representative of the entire gay community. I’m sick and tired of you not seeing me as a real person, okay? I’m not just Jackson’s gay best friend, I’m not just the gay kid on the lacrosse team, I’m not just the gay kid in your economics class. I’m more than just the gay kid, and I hate it when you reduce me to nothing more than my sexuality.”

Stiles feels like somebody punched him in the stomach. “That’s – that’s not – “

“Whatever,” Danny says, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Look, I don’t care _what_ you think you’re doing. If you’re legitimately having a sexuality crisis or something, that’s – look, I’m not the only one you can talk to about it. Like, if you desperately need somebody to talk to, I guess I can help – but just because I’m the only out guy at school doesn’t mean I want to be your gay hero, Stiles. I don’t want to be your _anything_. I don’t like you.”

This is really not what Stiles had been expecting, like, _at all_. This is way personal. Stiles knows that he should just apologize and never talk to Danny again, but if he does that there’s always the risk that Danny will turn up in the wildlife preserve in three days with his throat ripped out. Whether Stiles keeps lying to Danny or he lets it go and tells Scott to take care of his own business, somebody is going to get hurt.

That’s why, even though Stiles knows it’s a total dick move, even though he knows the right thing to do is smile and nod and walk away, even though he knows he’s about to get in way over his head, Stiles lifts his chin, crosses his arms, and says, “This isn’t about you being the only out kid at school. This about you being Danny Mahealani, who’s nice to everyone, even people who don’t deserve it. Who’s secretly a genius, who hacked into secure government files just to see if he could, who helped me out when I needed it most. That’s why I’m in love with you, Danny, okay? And I’m not having a crisis. I’m sure about this.”

Danny looks surprised, his mouth falling open a little, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Stiles says it again, “I love you, Danny.”

Danny sighs, closes his eyes, and then opens them again. “Prove it, Stiles,” he says. “If you can prove to me that you care about me, and not about my hacking skills, or your weird vendetta against my boyfriend, or some stupid dare from Scott or Lahey or Greenberg, then I’ll give you a chance. If you can prove that you know enough about me to actually be in love with _me_ , and not just the only person you know who might also be into dudes, then I’ll listen. Until then, not a chance.”

Danny turns away and pulls his keys out of his pocket, moving to unlock his car.

“Wait,” Stiles says, his mouth moving before his brain has the chance to fully catch up, as per usual, “Shake on it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Shake on it,” Stiles repeats, stepping towards Danny with his right hand outstretched. “We’re making a deal. If I prove that I’m not just jerking you around, you give me a chance. A deal.”

Danny looks right into Stiles’ eyes, looks down at his outstretched hand, and then meets his eyes once more as he steps forward and takes Stiles’ hand. Stiles feels like Danny is staring right into his soul, and he can’t stop staring at him. Danny’s hand is warm and dry, his grip firm but loose, a tiny smile quirking at the edges of his dimpled mouth. “Deal,” Danny agrees, and then squeezes Stiles’ hand once, hard, before dropping it and getting into his car.

Stiles isn’t sure how long he spends standing in the deserted parking lot, mouth open in a mixture of shock, confusion, regret, and horror. It’s probably not all that long, but it feels like an eternity before Scott comes up behind him and wraps a friendly arm around his shoulders.

“That looked like it went pretty well,” Scott says mildly, and Stiles turns to glare at him.

“Scott?”

“Yes?”

“Fuck off.”

* * *

“I need help,” Stiles moans into the phone, “Why did I ever think I could pull this off? Scott, why did you encourage this nonsense?”

“You can totally pull this off, Stiles,” Scott says supportively, his voice distant and crackly over the line. “I believe in you.”

“That’s very nice, Scott,” Stiles retorts drily, “but that doesn’t actually help me any, see. Now I have to prove to Danny that I’m genuinely in love with him, or he’ll think I’m just a shallow quasi-homophobic asshole?”

“He already thinks those things about you,” Scott points out, “Really, you’re disproving the negative images, more than proving the positive ones.”

Stiles isn’t struck speechless, but he suspects that if he were the type of person to lose the power of speech with shock, that statement would have done it. “Scott!” he cries, “Was that supposed to be positive?”

“Not really,” Scott admits. “Look, we’ve been over this like six times already. I know you have unlimited minutes, but I don’t. And let’s be honest, you haven’t exactly been particularly nice to Danny over the years, so there’s no reason for him to like you at all. Calm down.”

Stiles feels like he should be outraged by this, but he can’t muster the energy, and also he suspects Scott is right. “So what should I do?” he sighs. “I mean, years of experience with Lydia have taught me exactly what _not_ to do in this situation, but I don’t think that’s going to help.”

“Actually,” Scott muses, “the point of this is to get Danny to trust you so he’ll listen to you about Ethan being a giant dickbag, right?”

“Right,” Stiles says cautiously, “We’ve been over this. Where are you going with this, Scott?”

“So you don’t actually need to get Danny to fall in love with you,” Scott continues, “you just need to convince him that you’re in love with him. And Danny and Lydia are really good friends, so he probably knows all the sordid details of your crush on her. Which is probably why he’s so disinclined to believe you’re in love with him, actually.”

“Oh, great,” Stiles groans. “So not only does Danny hate me, he’s also intimately familiar with my nonexistent romantic history. Lovely.”

“No,” Scott says excitedly, “This could be a really good thing! Think about it, okay – you need to convince Danny you’re in love with him. Danny, thanks to Lydia, knows your exact modus operandi with regards to people you’re in love with. Treat Danny exactly how you treated Lydia a year ago, and I’d say you could get this all sorted out within a week.”

“So, I just need to be over the top and kind of creepy,” Stiles says flatly.

“Exactly!” Scott answers, enthused. “Okay, well, actually, you could lose the creepiness. But the grand romantic gestures could work!”

“I don’t know,” Stiles sighs, “Nothing I did in pursuit of Lydia is anything I’m particularly proud of. I don’t really want to revisit that."

“It wouldn’t be for real,” Scott points out. “And this time you’ll probably listen when I tell you it’s time to back off before somebody files a restraining order.”

“Yes, whatever,” Stiles says, flushing, “That was unrelated! And you got one too! Oh, shut up. I’ll bring him flowers or something, I don’t know."

“That’s the spirit,” Scott says encouragingly, “Flowers could totally work, at least as a first step. That’s a great idea!”

“I think you should just offer to suck his dick,” a muffled voice suggests.

“Oh, myGod,” Stiles says, “Oh. My. God. Isaac? Is that you? Scott, have I been on speakerphone this whole time?”

“I was doing pushups,” Scott says guiltily, as the unmistakable sound of Isaac snickering in the background confirms Stiles’ suspicions.

“You are the worst best friend ever,” Stiles says dramatically, “I can’t believe this. Isaac, go jump in a lake,” he adds, and hangs up.

* * *

When Stiles was trying to woo Lydia, he had only tried to get her flowers once or twice. The first time, he was nine and had painstakingly picked a huge bouquet of dandelions and Queen Anne’s lace. When he’d presented it to her, smiling nervously, Lydia had looked at it skeptically, picked a furry caterpillar off one of the blooms, and informed him as haughtily as only fourth-graders can that, while she was fascinated by the biology of the caterpillar, the flowers themselves were nothing more than common weeds, and she was baffled that Stiles thought they appeared in any way romantic.

After that, Stiles didn’t try flowers again until he was fourteen, and had hoped that now they were in high school they could have a fresh start. He had actually bought the flowers this time, saved his allowance for a month to buy her twelve carnations from an actual flower shop, and asked her to go to homecoming with him while handing her the flowers. This time, Lydia had smiled at him, accepted the flowers graciously, thanked him for asking her but she already had plans to go with Jackson Whittemore, and walked away. Stiles was feeling pretty good about his romantic skills – she had said no, but she hadn’t called him an idiot – until he walked down the hall and noticed the bouquet tossed carelessly in a trash can near Lydia’s locker.

So Stiles isn’t really sure how to approach the whole ‘flowers’ thing with Danny, since his only other attempts had ended in such disaster. He is pretty sure that dandelions and Queen Anne’s lace aren’t going to do the trick now that they were no longer elementary schoolers, since it hadn’t actually worked even when they actually had been in elementary school.

Also, he is supposed to be at school in twenty minutes and he’s still wearing pajama bottoms, so there isn’t really time to go buy flowers. Swearing at his terrible alarm clock, Stiles pulls on a pair of jeans that look more clean than dirty, brushes his teeth as quickly as possible, grabs his backpack and a Pop-Tart, and is just about to dash out the door, flowers be damned – he can always start Operation: Seduce Danny tomorrow, after all. But something catches his eye on the way out the door, and he pauses.

“Oh, what the hell,” he says quietly, conscious of his father sleeping in the next room after yet another night shift, and then grabs the rather sad potted plant off the kitchen table and dashes for the Jeep.

He makes it to school just in time to get to economics before Coach does, which is perfect, because being late to economics is eternally regrettable. Danny is already there, of course, because Danny is as perfect at being a student as he is at literally everything else. Stiles tries and fails to catch his breath from his mad dash from the parking lot, and settles for panting out, “Got you flowers,” in Danny’s direction before dropping the flowerpot on Danny’s desk and collapsing in his own seat next to Scott.

Danny looks down at the flowerpot. He turns around to look at Stiles. He opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again.

“Stiles,” he says, “this isn’t flowers.”

“It’s close enough,” Stiles wheezes. “It’s a plant, right? Flowers are plants?”

“This plant is not flowers,” Danny argues. “This is a half-dead cactus.”

Danny is not actually incorrect in his observation. Stiles would usually be protesting furiously about how wronged he feels by such terrible slanderous accusations, but Danny really is completely right. It definitely is a half-dead cactus.

Stiles had bought it a year or so ago, trying to bring some life to their empty house. He’d neglected to realize that neither he nor his father had any idea how to care for a plant. Stiles had diligently watered it every morning for a week before the sheriff had informed that it was very easy to overwater cactuses, at which point they had both agreed that, since neither of them knew exactly how much watering was overwatering, it was best to just ignore it altogether and hope it survived.

That was why the cheap plastic pot now sitting on Danny’s desk held a half-dead cactus rather than a mostly-alive cactus. Looking at it now, under the harsh fluorescent lights of the classroom rather than through a half-asleep haze of bad judgment and desperation, Stiles can definitely see how intensely unattractive the cactus is. He’s starting to suspect that forgoing a romantic gesture entirely for today might have been a better move.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, not really sure how to approach this, “that is a half-dead cactus.”

Danny stares at him. It’s a blank stare with an underlying current of annoyed hostility that Stiles is far too familiar with, and a stare that Stiles fears he’s about to become even more familiar with over the next few days. “And why did you bring me a half-dead cactus?” he asks coolly, voice controlled to a degree that sounds a little dangerous. Stiles is once more reminded that even without werewolf powers, Danny could probably crush his head like a moldy orange. Okay, no, probably not, but he could probably break a finger or two if he really wanted to. Stiles makes a note to not cause Danny to want to break his fingers.

“It is a half-dead cactus,” Stiles says, “Because the way the cactus is half-dead represents how my heart is half-dead without you to love, Daniel Mahealani. Is Danny short for Daniel, actually? I mean, I would assume so, like what else could it be short for? Danfrey? Danimal? Daenerys? Yeah, not so much, probably.”

Danny stares at him some more. Stiles squirms in his seat. Danny’s eyes feel like the harsh light of a police interrogation room, except Stiles can feel himself cracking under their strain and the police interrogations had never worked on him, not when his dad had questions about Jackson and not when Stiles was five and his father wanted to know who ate the last cookie.

“I’m sorry I brought you a half-dead cactus,” he blurts, the words pouring out of his mouth almost involuntarily. “Scott told me to bring you flowers, but every time I brought Lydia flowers she threw them out, and I didn’t have any money for real flowers anyway, and I didn’t have any time for coffee this morning and in a caffeine-deprived state I just kinda saw the cactus on the table and, like, went for it.” Stiles pauses for breath.

Danny’s stare eases somewhat.

“Look,” Stiles finishes, “I’m trying to show you I’m not just playing a mean joke on you. In retrospect, putting a dying cactus on your desk is probably not a good sign that I’m not making a mean joke, but I swear I’m being serious. Or as serious as I’m capable of being.”

Danny doesn’t smile, exactly, but he _softens_ , all the tensions Stiles hadn’t realized was there dropping out of the set of his shoulders, and he doesn’t smile, not really, not even a little, but he stops clenching his teeth and the lines of his face stop being quite so sharp. “Okay,” Danny says, “You can have the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the cactus, but don’t think this is me giving you a chance. This is Strike One, okay?”

Stiles sags in relief. “Awesome. Cool,” he babbles in relief. “Glad I’m not out before I had a chance to break out the big guns. Fabulous.”

“Stiles,” Danny says, looking regretful and a little anxious. “There is no need to break out any big guns. Please do not break out the big guns. I am worried that if you break out the big guns, you may set something on fire that was not meant to be set on fire.”

Stiles, remembering the great Bunsen burner debacle of 2009, winces.

From the seat beside him Scott snickers loudly, clearly also remembering the great Bunsen burner debacle of 2009, and Stiles kicks him.

Coach Finstock walks into class, at last, and begins talking about … something. Stiles hates economics; it’s dull and useless, so he refuses to pay attention in this class. Everything on the test is common sense, anyway, and he’s pretty sure he’s never going to have to know about supply and demand in the future. He has no plans to pursue business as a career, he thinks he’ll be pretty safe.

“That went okay,” Stiles whispers to Scott.

“Shh, I’m trying to learn econ,” Scott replies. Stiles rolls his eyes. Scott being serious about his schoolwork this year is _totally_ a buzzkill.

“But that was okay, right?”

Scott sighs. “You didn’t mess everything up,” he agrees, “but you almost did. Try harder.”

Stiles wrinkles his nose in annoyance. Scott is actually kind of right, which is the worst. And he’s returned to diligently taking notes, so Stiles can’t even badger him into talking some more without feeling horrendously guilty for interfering with his education.

Coach Finstock says something about the stock market, and Stiles tries valiantly not to fall asleep. It’s then that Stiles hears Danny’s stomach growl, even over Finstock’s incessant talking.

It’s pretty loud.

Stiles looks down at his desk, where the Pop-Tarts he snagged this morning are still sitting in their shiny silver package. Stiles’ own stomach rumbles lightly in protest, but Stiles just sighs. He knows what he has to do.

He leans forward and taps Danny on the shoulder. Danny doesn’t turn around, but he does twitch a little. Stiles just rolls his eyes. Economics is a terrible class, really, he doesn’t know why so many people insist on trying to pay attention.

Stiles looks longingly at the Pop-Tarts one last time, and then subtly slips them onto Danny’s desk. Well, okay, it’s not particularly subtle. But the Pop-Tarts end up on Danny’s desk and Finstock doesn’t appear to notice, so Stiles is marking that up as a definite win in his book.

Danny does turn around at the mysterious appearance of sugary breakfast treats on his desk, and quirks a quizzical eyebrow at Stiles.

“God, I wish I could do that, “ Stiles breathes. “The eyebrow thing, I mean.”

Danny holds the expression.

Stiles sighs. “They’re Pop-Tarts,” he explains. “For you. Well, they were for me, but you sounded hungry and I should be okay until lunch, so now they’re yours. They’re s’mores flavored,” he adds.

Danny looks a little confused, but he does smile at that, cheeks dimpling perfectly. “Thanks,” he whispers, turning around again. Stiles can hear the distinctive sounds of contented munching before Finstock calls on him to ask him something about the free market, and Stiles tries to come up with a comment that is in any way relevant to the free market. He’s not successful. Which is okay, really, considering.

* * *

“So, food seems to work,” Scott says happily as he sits down across from Stiles at the lunch table.

Stiles frowns. “What do you mean?” he asks, confused. “Food works for what?”

Allison, grabbing the chair next to Stiles, rolls her eyes. “Food works towards yours and Scott’s harebrained scheme to destroy Danny’s interpersonal relationships while still keeping him in the dark with regards to supernatural goings-on,” she says matter of factly. “And it’s for his own good, I know; you mentioned,” she adds, cutting Stiles’ indignant protest out before he can even open his mouth.

Stiles makes a face at her. “Whatever,” he says shortly, sticking a plastic fork into the rather gelatinous mass that the cafeteria claims is macaroni and cheese. “I don’t think it was the food, you guys. I’m pretty sure it was the combination of romantic flowers and an honest confession that convinced Danny of my sincerity.”

Scott snorts. Allison giggles. Isaac, joining them at last, looks confused but contributes a half-hearted chuckle just so he doesn’t feel left out.

“No,” Scott says, smirking into his peanut butter sandwich, “Danny almost committed homicide with a mechanical pencil when you dropped that dead cactus on his desk, Stiles.”

“Half-dead,” Stiles corrects, taking a large bite of the macaroni and instantly regretting it. “And besides, he didn’t stab me, so clearly my heartfelt apology won him over.”

“Your heartfelt apology helped,” Scott concedes, “but it was really the Pop-Tarts. Trust me on that one.”

Allison nods. “Danny gets really grumpy when he has low blood sugar,” she informs them. “Keep him well-fed, and he’s forty percent less likely to murder Stiles with school supplies.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “So, what,” he scoffs, “keep bringing him snacks until he caves and decides to listen to what I say about Ethan?”

“Well,” Scott says, “you should probably, like, talk to him and stuff. But snacks are a main component of the plan, yeah.”

“This is a terrible plan,” Stiles says morosely, forcing down more of the so-called macaroni and cheese. “There is no way it’s ever going to work.”

Allison pats him on the shoulder. “Yeah,” she says, “it’s a pretty bad idea. But you’ll make it work, somehow. You always do.”

Stiles smiles. “Thanks,” he says.

“Yeah,” Isaac adds. “If you keep trying hard enough, I’m sure Danny will date you eventually.”

Scott turns and looks at Isaac. “You know he’s not _actually_ trying to date Danny, right?”

Isaac looks confused. “Wait, if you’re not trying to date Danny, why are you bringing him flowers and Pop-Tarts?"

Allison rolls her eyes. “Scott and Stiles think that it’s dangerous for Danny to date Ethan, and they also think that if Stiles can seduce him away from Ethan it’ll help keep Danny safe.”

Isaac smirks. “Yeah, that really is a terrible plan,” he says. “Good luck, dude. You’ll need it.”

Stiles glares at them both, and finally gives up on the macaroni. “You both suck,” he says decisively. “I like Scott. Scott is helpful and nice.”

“Heck yeah, I am!” Scott agrees, and holds his hand up for a high five. Stiles obliges him.

“So, food?” Stiles pointedly directs his query towards Scott, ignoring the other two. “You really think that’s going to work?”

Scott shrugs. “I think it’ll work better than anything else you can come up with,” he says honestly. “It’s dramatic enough that Danny will know you’re serious, but it’s not quite so annoying as most of your seduction techniques.”

Stiles is tempted to argue this, but they’ve been over this already. Multiple times. Stiles is kind of annoying; that’s just a fact. He’s resigned to it, really, because it’s a lost cause at this point. “Okay,” he says, “I’ll give it a try.”

“Again,” Isaac drawls, “I think you should just blow him.”

“Still not helpful!” Stiles snaps, glaring.

Allison tilts her head to the side, and a smile dimples her face. “It’s worth a shot, actually,” she says, giggling.

“I hate you all.”

* * *

So Stiles drops by the grocery store on his way home from school and picks up a box of Betty Crocker cake mix and a tub of frosting, along with some chicken and veggies for dinner. Stiles can cook exactly four thing: stir fry, omelets, Hamburger Helper, and spaghetti. Moreover, every time he’s ventured outside of his culinary comfort zone, things have ended in varying degrees of complete and utter disaster. But it’s been almost a year since Stiles set off the smoke alarm, and really, he can’t imagine that cupcakes can be too terribly hard to make, either. They come in a box, after all. It must be easy.

Unfortunately, he hits an immediate stumbling block with the cupcakes an hour later when, math homework finished and English homework consigned to the pile of things he’ll finish later or not at all, Stiles actually reads the back of the cake mix box and realizes that though he has eggs, he does not, in fact, have any butter or margarine. Some quick Googling assures him that he can substitute applesauce for butter, and after some serious digging around in the cupboards, Stiles discovers a very dusty but not yet expired pack of Mott’s applesauce cups.

They’re actually cinnamon flavored, but he can’t imagine that’ll cause too much damage. After all, he can’t taste the cinnamon in them at all, and besides, cinnamon and chocolate totally complement each other. Kind of.

Stiles is staring at the back of the box and wishing he had an electric mixer when somebody rings the doorbell. This is weird, because Stiles’ dad is at work and Scott doesn’t bother with doorbells or knocking anymore; he just walks right in, or jumps through the bathroom window, or something. And Stiles doesn’t really have any other friends that actually come to his house, so he’s fairly baffled by who this could be.

So, still clutching the box of cake mix, Stiles goes to answer the door, remembering at the last second to check the peephole first, just in case it’s an evil supernatural being come to eat his spleen for lunch.

And it’s good he does check, because there, standing on his front porch and looking more than a little grumpy, is Ethan. Considering that the cake mix he’s currently holding is for a project designed explicitly to sabotage Ethan’s romantic relationship, this is basically the worst possible scenario. Okay, no, a vampire or something showing up suck his blood would be the worst possible scenario, but Ethan is a close second.

“Shit!” Stiles says, before remembering that Ethan has werewolf hearing and that he has therefore given himself away and destroyed any chances he had of pretending not to be home. “Oh, _shit_!”

“Let me in, Stiles,” Ethan says, “I just want to talk.”

Stiles rethinks his opinion on vampires as a worst-case scenario. At least vampires wouldn’t be able to get in his house, and he had some frozen garlic bread in the freezer he could throw at a potential Count Dracula. With Ethan, though, he’s pretty much screwed. Stiles grimaces at the door, but pulls it open. “Fine,” he says, glowering, “You can come in, but I’d just like to say right off the bat that I do _not_ like you.”

Ethan stalks past Stiles and through the door. “Don’t worry,” he says, “you have made that very clear. And, if it helps, I don’t like you either.”

Stiles closes the door and crosses his arm. “You know,” he says, “that actually does help some. Thanks.”

Ethan rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” he says, “Can we just talk about how you brought me boyfriend flowers this morning? Not cool, dude.”

“First of all,” Stiles says defensively, “Danny told me you guys weren’t dating. He said you were just ‘hanging out, or whatever.’ And second of all, it wasn’t flowers, it was a half-dead cactus.”

Ethan looks slightly hurt. “Did he really say that? I thought we were dating. Why doesn’t he think we’re dating?”

“Did you have the talk about labeling your relationship?” Stiles asks.

Ethan frowns. “Well, no.”

“Then that’s why,” Stiles says wisely. “Scott and I watch a lot of Gilmore Girls. We know these things.”

Ethan looks slightly disturbed. “You and Scott watch a lot of Gilmore Girls?”

“That’s not the relevant part,” Stiles says hastily. “The important part is that you and Danny aren’t exclusive, so what I’m doing is totally on the up-and-up.”

“Aiden says that Lydia says that you pursued her hardcore when she was dating Jackson,” Ethan points out.“Was that totally on the up-and-up?”

“Again,” Stiles huffs, “I am not proud of that! And this is an entirely different kettle of fish, so don’t bring Lydia into this, please!” Stiles turns to go back to the kitchen. He can already sense that this is going to be a lengthy conversation, and he wants to get these cupcakes into the oven sooner rather than later, because when his dad gets home he does not want to be explaining why he’s baking cupcakes to seduce Danny Mahealani. Not that he thinks his dad would have a problem with the fact that Stiles is maybe-probably bisexual, that’s just a conversation that he doesn’t want to have right now.

Also, Stiles’ dad has a blanket ban on dating anyone with a police record. Stiles is pretty sure that Danny’s police record is taking him to very good places, rather than indicating some sort of delinquency, and in fact Stiles himself has a criminal record now due to that whole kanima business, but these are nuances that Stiles does not think his father will be particularly receptive to.

Ethan follows Stiles into the kitchen. “What are you doing?” he asks curiously, gesturing at the applesauce cups and the cake mix.

“I’m making cupcakes,” Stiles says loftily.

“Why?”

“To give to Danny,” Stiles says matter-of-factly, looking for a wooden spoon. They apparently don’t have one, but they do have what appears to be a whisk for some reason. Stiles doesn’t know why they have a whisk but no butter, but it’s best not to question these things, really.

Ethan grits his teeth and leans back against the refrigerator. “What,” he says derisively, “first flowers and now cupcakes?”

Stiles points the whisk at Ethan. “I told you, it wasn’t flowers, it was a half-dead cactus.”

“And that’s better?”

Stiles shrugs. “Well, Danny hated it, so it’s better for you, at least.”

Ethan smirks. “Ha. Suck it.”

“These cupcakes are going to be amazing, though!” Stiles says, still waving the whisk around wildly. “Speaking of which, can you hand me three eggs?”

Ethan opens the refrigerator and pulls out the egg carton.

“Do you have any idea how to make cupcakes?” he asks, as Stiles cracks the eggs into the bowl.

“It’s cake mix,” Stiles retorts, “It’s not that hard. Hey, we don’t have a measuring cup, do you think this is about a cup?” He holds up a water glass.

Ethan eyeballs it. “Probably…? Seriously, though, stay away from Danny.”

“No,” Stiles shoots back, emptying the first container of applesauce into the bowl. “I don’t think you’re good enough for him.”

Ethan snorts. “What, and you are?”

“No,” Stiles answers, annoyed.“But at least I’ve never killed anyone.”

Ethan doesn’t really have an answer to that.

“I think you’re dangerous,” Stiles continues. “You killed a whole pack of werewolves, and you killed Boyd. I’m not saying I’ve never considered killing anybody – I’m no saint – but you’ve actually done it, several times over. Why the hell would I let you date my friend when I watched you and your creepy brother tear Boyd apart?"

“I-“ Ethan says, still lost for words. “Look, we didn’t have a choice. We had to follow Deucalion’s orders.”

“No,” Stiles says, watching the second cup of applesauce land in the mixing bowl with a satisfying _splat_. “No, you fucking well didn’t. If you valued human life enough, you wouldn’t have killed him. And people who don’t value human life don’t deserve to date smart, hot, funny people. They don’t deserve to live, actually, but again, Scott would lecture me if I went all vigilante on your ass, and my dad would ground me for _years,_ and the inherent hypocrisy of the situation might make my brain explode, so instead I’m just trying to destroy your interpersonal relationships in order to protect my friends.”

“Danny says you aren’t friends,” says Ethan, clearly choosing not to address the aggressively unpleasant parts of Stiles’ little rant.

Stiles just sighs and lets him. “I am not Danny’s friend,” he admits. “Danny thinks I’m annoying and rude. But _I_ think Danny is my friend. I think he’s smart and funny and cool and really hot, and I want him to like me. So I’m making him cupcakes. Because maybe then he’ll like me.”

Ethan pulls a chair out from the kitchen table and sits down on it, backwards. “That’s dumb,” he says. “You can’t bribe Danny into liking you with food.”

“I can try,” Stiles says, ripping open the third package of applesauce. “And, hey, trying to win Danny over with food is a lot better than halfheartedly trying to atone for literal murder by simply stopping actively being evil while never actually apologizing or showing any sort of regret at all.”

“I do regret it,” Ethan says. “I do, okay?”

“Well, you certainly don’t show it,” Stiles says snippily, and dumps the third and fourth containers of applesauce into the bowl. He then stops, and checks the box again while doing some quick mental math. “Oh, come on,” he sighs. The recipe calls for half a cup of butter or, since he has no butter, half a cup of applesauce. Each applesauce container holds four ounces. Stiles, in his distraction and anger, has added four times as much butter substitute as the recipe calls for. He looks into the bowl where the cake mix is, indeed, looking awfully soupy and distinctly more like applesauce than cake mix probably should.

“This is not going to be good,” he sighs, and starts whisking.

* * *

“He stayed there the whole time?” Scott whispers incredulously.

“Yeah!” Stiles answers in the same quiet undertone, trying to remain unnoticed by Ms. Hernandez, the teacher they got to replace Ms. Blake. Stiles still isn’t sure how they explained her death, but he’s fairly certain Beacon Hills is beginning to approach Sunnydale levels of intentional ignorance of supernatural ongoings. He hasn’t seen any newspaper articles about gang members on PCP yet, but he wouldn’t be in the least surprised if that showed up soon. “We talked about Danny at first, but then he just wouldn’t leave! So we talked about Star Wars and he helped me frost the cupcakes.”

Scott frowns. “Why on earth would he do that?”

“I have no idea!” Stiles gesticulates wildly. “He’s literally helping sabotage his own relationship! That makes no sense!”

Scott pauses, thinking. Then he shrugs. “Yeah, I got nothing. Maybe he just doesn’t see you as a threat?”

Stiles refuses to respond to that, but privately he thinks that it’s really very possible that Scott has hit on the truth with that one.

“Anyway,” Stiles says, “I’m going to give Danny the cupcakes at lunch.”

Scott smiles. “Awesome! Can I try one?”

“They’re in my locker,” Stiles tells him. “But yeah, sure.”

Scott gives him a thumbs-up, and returns to highlighting relevant passages in King Lear. Stiles, on the other hand, returns to highlighting all the sexual innuendos in King Lear.

There’s a lot of them.

When class is over, Scott follows Stiles to his locker, and hands him a cupcake. “Here,” he says, “this is yours. I’m going to find Danny now.”

“Thanks, dude!” Scott says, but Stiles is already halfway to the cafeteria, Tupperware container of cupcakes held securely with both hands.

Stiles scans the cafeteria rapidly, stomach fluttering with inexplicable nervous energy as he searches for Danny. He eventually sees him sitting in the middle of the cafeteria with Lydia, Harley, and a few other people from the cross-country team.

Ethan, strangely, is sitting with his brother at an entirely different table, but Stiles doesn’t take the time to fully wonder about that little detail. He dashes over to Danny’s table and slams the Tupperware down on the table in front of him.

“I made you cupcakes!” he says proudly, and Danny looks at them skeptically.

“Really?”

Stiles nods. “They always say, the route to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” he says wisely, “so here I am! Winning your heart through delicious desserts!”

“We’ll see about the ‘winning my heart,’” Danny says skeptically, but Stiles can see a tiny smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, and he pries the cover off the box.

“We’ll also see about ‘delicious,’” Lydia mutters, looking sidelong at the cupcakes. They are, admittedly, fairly misshapen, and the frosting seems to have melted somewhat while they were in Stiles’ locker. But Stiles figures they can’t be _too_ terrible. They were from a box, after all. Betty Crocker would never betray him.

Danny peels the paper off one of more intact cupcakes. And then Scott skids to a stop directly behind Stiles, arms windmilling to keep his balance.

“Don’t eat the cupcakes!” he forces out, breathing heavily, just as Danny takes a large bite.

Stiles feels like the world is moving in slow motion, as Danny’s face changes from neutral to horrified to incredibly disgusted.

Lydia calmly hands him a napkin. Danny ignores her and swallows with some effort, grimacing.

“What the hell, Stilinski?” he says, after taking a long drink of water.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says miserably, “I’m so sorry, I just – “

Greenberg walks by. “Hey, can I have a cupcake?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabs one and immediately takes a bite.

Everyone stares at him in horror.

He chews consideringly, swallows, and takes another bite.

Scott’s jaw drops.

“This is pretty good,” he says happily. “Who made them?”

“Stiles,” Lydia says, failing to suppress a smirk.

“Well, great job!” Greenberg says happily.

“You can have them,” Danny says. “In fact, please take them. Please.”

“Wow, really?” Greenberg chirps, and then grabs the box and bounces away.

There’s a moment of shared horrified silence at the lunch table. Then Danny breaks out into laughter.

Stiles doesn’t really know how to react to this.

“The worst – cupcake – I’ve ever had – “ Danny forces the words out between snickers, “and he ate – the whole – thing – “

Beside him, Harley is laughing, too, and Lydia is giggling a bit.

“Oh my God,” Scott says, stunned. “What – what is _wrong_ with him?”

Stiles pouts. “Oh come on,” he protests. “Were they really so bad?”

“Yes,” Danny and Scott say in unison.

“They really, really were,” Scott adds fervently.

Danny is still snickering some though. “At least you tried, Stilinski.”

Well. It’s not much, Stiles thinks to himself as he slinks away to go eat with Scott and bury his embarrassment in cheese fries, but it’s a start.

* * *

Stiles blames Scott for the fact that he’s standing outside Danny Mahealani’s window at five AM, holding his iPod speaker over his head and shivering against the early morning chill. Stiles blames Scott for most of the things that go wrong in his life, actually. It’s a little immature and petty, but Scott’s his best friend, so he understands.

Of course, most of the things Stiles blames Scott for are actually in no way his fault. But in this case, Scott was the one who had advised him that cactuses and cupcakes weren’t going to cut it, and that he had to step up his game and be really dramatic. So this one is Scott’s fault. It _totally_ is.

Kind of.

Stiles hits play on his battered iPod nano, and the opening chords of Simple Minds blast loudly throughout the crisp September air.

Danny’s window flies open.

“What,” he says loudly, glaring at Stiles, “are you _doing_?”

“Wooing you,” Stiles calls up to Danny, grinning.

“It’s not working,” Danny snarls.

“Don’t you,” Stiles sings along with the music, very off key as per usual, “forget about me-“

“I wish I could forget about you,” Danny snaps. “Seriously, Stiles, what the fuck is this?”

“I’m being romantic!” Stiles calls up. “It worked for John Cusack in a cheesy ‘80s teen movie, so I figured it would work for me, too!”

Danny sighs. “First of all, Stilinski, you look nothing like John Cusack. And second of all, you do realize that we don’t actually live in a cheesy ‘80s movie, right?”

“But think of how much better everything would be if we did!” Stiles protests. “In cheesy ‘80s movies, there’s a great musical number for no reason and the guy always gets the girl and there’s an emotional bonding moment two thirds of the way through for no apparent reason. It’s awesome! I figured you’d appreciate a little bit of theatricality in your life.”

“Not at 5 in the morning, I don’t,” Danny says drily. “Can you leave now?”

“Do you feel seduced?” Stiles asks hopefully.

Danny just looks pointedly at his flannel Batman pajama pants, his Beacon Hills Lacrosse hoodie, and his battered Jeep parked behind him.

Stiles’ iPod, which had somehow been set to shuffle, starts playing the Spice Girls.

“I’m gonna take that as a no.”

Danny just slams his window, leaving Stiles standing in Danny’s front yard. His sneakers are soaked through with the morning dew, and his hopes of finishing this whole seduction debacle quickly and painlessly are crushed to tiny, jagged little pieces.

“If you wanna be my lover,” his speakers trill, and Stiles growls before turning them off and stomping over to his Jeep.

To his incredible surprise, as he’s turning his car on, Danny slides into the passenger seat.

“Oh my God,” Stiles says, startled. “What are you doing?”

“I’m coming with you,” Danny says, dropping his head back onto the headrest and closing his eyes. “You woke me up early, the least you can do is give me a ride.”

Stiles looks over at Danny, looks at the way his t-shirt –  so worn it’s  nearly transparent –  pulls across the breadth of his shoulders. He looks at the shadows under Danny’s eyes, looks at the way he sags fluidly against the seat of Stiles’ Jeep, looks at the way his hair is sticking up slightly in back.

“You’re in pajamas,” Stiles points out. “And I’m going home first, to be honest. School doesn’t start for almost three hours.”

 “Then why did you wake me up, you idiot?” Danny rebukes, but it lacks the heat of other retorts he’s made. He just sounds … tired.

Which is fair enough, really, considering that Stiles _did_ wake him up at an unholy hour of the morning for a grand display of his “love.” Which is, in retrospect, not particularly endearing in any way. Stiles wonders about his own logic processes sometimes.

“You’ll need clothes, and textbooks and stuff,” Stiles points out, pulling away from Danny’s house.

Danny just motions to the backpack at his feet, and then closes his eyes and leans his head back. “Everything’s in there,” he says. “Now shush, and let me sleep."

“If you’d wanted to sleep, you could have stayed at your own house,” Stiles mutters, but he does it quietly, and in fact he doesn’t actually say another word the entire drive home. He only opens his mouth once the Jeep is safely ensconced in the Stilinski garage, to say, “Wake up, Danny. We’re here.”

“Nnnnngh,” Danny says, and shifts in his seat so he’s curled up against the side of the car, back to Stiles, forehead resting against the cool glass of the window.

Stiles hesitates, biting his lip in consternation, before reaching out a tentative hand to rest on Danny’s shoulder. “Come on, dude,” he says softly, shaking him gently awake. “You can’t sleep in my car. It’ll mess your neck up, for one, and for another it smells way too much like Pringles, according to Scott.”

Danny doesn’t respond. Stiles doesn’t really know what to do about that.

“Dude,” he repeats, “you can’t sleep in my car. It’s weird. We’re not at that point yet. Come on, our couch is really comfortable. You can borrow my dad’s Snuggie, it’ll be awesome.”

Danny sits up, wipes his eyes blearily, and then sinks back into the seat. “Couch?” he says hopefully.

“Yeah,” Stiles says encouragingly, privately thinking that a half-asleep Danny was actually incredibly cute, like a confused and surprisingly well-built kitten. “Couch! It’s like a bed, but you can also watch TV on it.”

Danny groans. “It’s way too early for words,” he complains. “I’m staying here.”

“Oh no you’re not,” Stiles insists, grabbing Danny’s upper arm, and tugging. “Come on, inside. Now.”

Danny frowns and shakes Stiles off before managing to open his own door successfully. Stiles is a little impressed by that, actually, when he considers that Danny’s eyes are still definitely closed.

However, Danny does not manage to successfully extricate himself from the Jeep – he sets his feet down on the concrete of the garage floor, but when he tries to step forward, he lists to one side and ends up leaning against the side of the car, looking almost exactly like a very wobbly baby deer just learning to walk. It’s like Bambi in his garage, Stiles thinks, as he rushes around the front of the car to grab Danny before he trips and falls onto the lawn mower or something equally disastrous.

“Hey,” Stiles says, “Careful, now.” He drapes Danny’s arm over his own shoulders, shuts the car door, and walks him carefully to the door, tugging him up the stairs and into the kitchen.

“Do you want coffee?” Stiles asks Danny, “That’ll help you wake up a bit.”

Danny just kind of whines a little bit, which Stiles takes as a no.

“Yeah, okay, sleep,” Stiles says agreeably, dragging Danny into the living room. “That sounds good too.”

Danny collapses onto the couch as soon as Stiles lets go, flopping into the cushions. Stiles picks up the ratty fleece blanket that’s been draped over the back of the couch for as long as he can remember. He and Scott always cuddle under it when they’re having movie marathons or Mario Kart tournaments or sleepovers.

Stiles hesitates for a few seconds, because what he’s considering seems oddly, uncomfortably intimate. But everything about today has been uncomfortably intimate, really, and so Stiles shakes out the blanket carefully, to dislodge any pretzel crumbs or dirty socks that could be lurking within, and spreads it carefully over Danny.

He stands there awkwardly, not sure of the protocol to follow in this sort of situation, not sure that a protocol for this sort of situation even _exists_ , and then turns to leave. But Danny reaches out a hand, flails around blindly, and grabs the hem of Stiles’ t-shirt. “No,” he mumbles sleepily. “Stay.”

“Me, stay?” Stiles says, and hears the echo in his words going back to that time with Lydia in her bedroom, and then he winces, and keeps walking away. He messed up then, had messed up really badly. He’s not proud of that at all, at _all_ , and he doesn’t want to do anything like that again – not to Lydia, not to Danny, not to anyone.

But Danny sits up, and even manages to pry his eyes open somewhat. “Stiles,” he says, voice low. “Stay.”

Stiles looks at him, looks at the door to the kitchen, and looks back at Danny lying on the couch, hair rumpled and face open and innocent.

“Yeah,” Stiles says softly, “okay,” and he knows it’s probably a little wrong and a lot terrible, but he’s never pretended to be anything but a person who is often wrong and always terrible. So he lets Danny drag him down onto the narrow couch, with its stained fabric and broken springs; he lets Danny pull him beneath the rather filthy blanket and tug him close to his body. He lets Danny wrap strong arms around his shoulders, lets Danny tuck his head beneath Stiles’ chin and close his eyes and go to sleep.

And Stiles lies there, breathing in the scent of Danny’s hair. It smells like soap and pine needles and something else, all faintly tinged with sweat and boy smell, all quintessentially Danny. He lies there, feeling the heat of Danny’s body leak through his clothes, feeling the way Danny’s left hand is resting on Stiles’ right hip and it should be awkward, uncomfortable, but instead every point of contact between them is like an electric shock. Every time Danny shifts next to him, it’s like Stiles’ nerves are electrified, thrumming with anxiety and something else, something unfamiliar and strange and not altogether unpleasant.

And even though Stiles feels like he’s being set alight with the sensations, he closes his own eyes. He relaxes into the couch cushions, relaxes into Danny’s arms. His mind is still racing relentlessly, as it always does, but somehow, amid the waves of curious emotion and novel impressions, he drifts into sleep.

* * *

 The house was dark when he fell asleep, everything still and quiet in the predawn  hours. When Stiles wakes up again, it’s only about an hour later, the world still calm and unmoving, but there are now birds chirping in the distance and the world is just starting to tinge pink around the horizon.

Stiles sits up. Danny is no longer on the couch next to him, but the depression in the couch where his body once was is still warm, so he can’t have been gone long – but he’s definitely not here anymore; the living room is empty, and the whole house is still and quiet. Stiles, with a sinking feeling, stands up. He should have known that Danny was just ridiculously out of it due to lack of sleep. He should never have let Danny come home with him, never should have taken advantage of his lack of awareness. Stiles know, just _knows_ that he’s ruined any chance he ever had of winning Danny over.

And it hurts. It hurts a lot, way more than he had ever expected to, and with a feeling like a sickening punch to the stomach, Stiles realizes that it’s not just about doing Scott a favor. It still is about protecting Danny, but it’s more than that, too. He _likes_ Danny, and he’s always liked Danny because everyone likes Danny, but this isn’t just that feeling of admiration. It’s a sort of swooping feeling in his chest, a buzzing in his fingertips, and Stiles doesn’t want Danny to stop dating Ethan just because Ethan is terrible. Stiles wants Danny to stop dating Ethan and start dating _him_. Stiles wants Danny to smile at him with his perfect dimples and sit with him at lunch and laugh at his jokes. Stiles wants Danny to sit in the passenger seat of his Jeep all the time, not just during strange failed attempts at romance in the wee hours of the morning. Stiles wants Danny to text him his thoughts and feelings and pictures of his cats, Stiles wants Danny to hold his hand and walk down the hallway at school together, Stiles wants Danny to lean against his locker and hold his books and ruffle his hair.

Stiles wants Danny to kiss him softly between classes, to kiss him harder in the parking lot after practice, to press him down into the couch when they have the house to themselves and kiss him until he can’t breathe. Stiles wants Danny, he just wants him, he wants him so bad it hurts – and Stiles has just ruined all his chances of Danny ever looking at him with anything except hate.

This isn’t good. This is so epically not good that Stiles collapses back onto the couch and drops his head down into his hands. It feels like there’s a huge gaping hole opening up in his stomach, a huge gaping hole that at any moment could consume him entirely until there’s nothing left on the Stilinski’s couch but a pair of shoelaces and a distinct aura of regret. Stiles hasn’t felt like this in _years_ , not since he found the flowers he bought Lydia in the ninth grade sitting in the trash.

It’s terrible.

And then, staring down at the threadbare gray carpet, Stiles hears a shattering noise from the kitchen and somebody, somebody who is not his dad at _all_ , mutters, “Shit!”

Something flutters in Stiles’ chest, something warm and hopeful rising up within him, and Stiles lifts his head, jumps to his feet, and dashes into the kitchen.

Danny is standing in the middle of the kitchen holding a roll of paper towels, a broken coffee mug at his feet and a rueful expression on his face.

“I kind of broke this,” he says apologetically. “My bad.”

Stiles feels his face break out into an uncontrollable beaming grin. “No big deal,” he says, waves of relief and joy crashing down around him. “I thought you left.” The words slip out accidentally, and he bites his tongue, waiting.

Danny just grins crookedly. “Nah,” he says, shrugging, “I kind of hijacked my way onto your couch somehow, I figured the least I could do was make you coffee.”

Stiles shrugs back. “I mean, I’m the one who woke you up incredibly early with the music and the theatrics, so if anything, I owe you coffee,” he says warily, and then regrets bringing it up. Maybe Danny forgot that debacle entirely, and Stiles was just sabotaging himself at this point.

Danny, against literally all odds, laughs. “It’s okay, I thought that was kind of cute,” he confesses. “I mean, it would have been cuter at five pm instead of five am, but on the whole it was a nice gesture.”

This is weird. This is very, very weird. Danny hates Stiles, thinks Stiles is annoying and obnoxious and rude. There is no reason for Danny to be _smiling_ at him at 6:30 in the morning, looking impossibly angelic in his tattered Give Blood t-shirt and his Beacon Hills LAX sweatpants hanging low on his hips.

“Let me get you a broom,” Stiles says nervously, and dashes out of the kitchen and into the garage.

He stands there for a minute, back against the door, just standing there and thinking. He definitely likes Danny, a _lot_ , and Danny … well, he’s being a lot nicer than usual. Not that he’s mean, ever – he isn’t, not at all. But he’s also always made it clear that he doesn’t care for Stiles, and it’s always hurt a little. Because everyone loves Danny and Danny loves everyone – except Stiles, and that’s always stung, only now it stings a whole lot more.

Except … _does_ Danny still hate him? He definitely didn’t seem like he hated Stiles when he was drooling on Stiles’ shirt an hour ago. And he doesn’t seem angry or annoyed now, standing barefoot and smiling in Stiles’ kitchen.

Stiles knows that he really doesn’t have a chance with Danny, knows he really doesn’t have a chance with anyone. But that had never stopped him with Lydia, even when it really should have. And it hadn’t stopped him from trying to charm Danny when Scott had suggested it, either, though despite all his bravado, he had never actually believed their plan would succeed. That hadn’t really bothered him at first, though, because back then he hadn’t had anything to lose.

But the stakes were higher now. It had been easy when he was just doing it as part of some scheme; it didn’t matter if he pissed Danny off, because Danny already hated him.

But now Danny was in Stiles’ kitchen and smiling at Stiles and taking rides in Stiles’ Jeep. He had cuddled Stiles on his living room couch. Stiles is nervous now, because he _does_ have something to lose, and he really doesn’t want to lose it. He cares, he cares a _lot_ , and Stiles usually tries to avoid caring about people because this is Beacon Hills; it’s dangerous. And even without the supernatural weirdness, real life is dangerous, too. It’s so easy to lose somebody, Stiles knows all too well, and it hurts so much when that does happen, and the easy answer is to just not care about people so it doesn’t hurt when they get hurt.

But Stiles cares now. He’s in way too deep. He cares about Danny, he cares a _lot_ , and he is so, so fucked.

He grabs the broom and goes back to the kitchen. “Careful you don’t step on any broken glass,” he says, voice surprisingly steady, and Danny nods, standing perfectly still while Stiles sweeps around him.

“So,” Danny says as Stiles empties the dustbin into the trash, “Since I failed so miserably at making coffee, is there any chance you can help me out here? I need caffeine if I’m going to be any sort of functional human being.”

Stiles grins at him, hoping desperately that his expression looks normal and not strained and weird. “Sure, dude,” he says, faking nonchalance. “You sit down where you can’t break anything else, and I’ll work on the coffee.”

Danny pouts a little at that, but sits down at the kitchen counter and watches as Stiles rummages around in the cupboards for coffee filters. Neither of them say anything, but it’s a comfortable sort of silence, rather than the awkward silence that usually occurs around them.

“The sun’s coming up,” Danny says eventually, as the coffee is brewing, gesturing out the window. Danny’s right, obviously; it’s rising and tingeing the early morning sky with streaks of rosy golden light, the first rays of the actual sun just beginning to peek over the treetops.

“It’s pretty,” Stiles says, dropping into the seat next to Danny and staring out the window. “I don’t get to see the sunrise very often.”

Danny looks surprised. “Really?”

Stiles remembers all the times he’s been out all night with Scott and the other werewolves, making his way back to his bedroom muddy and exhausted just as the sun was beginning to appear, and revises that statement. “Well, no, I see it plenty. It’s just that usually when I see the sunrise I’ve been awake all night. It’s different from this direction. Nicer, I guess.”

Danny smiles. “When I run before school, I always get to watch the sun come up. It almost makes up for having to wake up an hour earlier. Only almost, though; I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly a morning person.”

Stiles makes a non-committal noise; Danny _definitely_ isn’t a morning person, but Stiles is really enjoying the lack of hatred and glaring, and he’s not going to risk pissing Danny off again. Then the other half of Danny’s statement registers. “Wait,” he asks, “you run before school?”

Danny shrugs.. “You have to work hard to be the best,” he explains. “And Jackson always wanted to be the best, and I couldn’t have him getting too much better than me. He gets unbelievably annoying when he wins all the time.”

“Do you miss him?” Stiles asks. “Because if Scott moved to a whole different country, I don’t know how I’d cope.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “Of course I miss him,” he says simply. “He’s my best friend. But we Skype all the time and he sends me tons of really annoying Snapchats of pigeons and his coffee order, so even though he’s thousands of miles away he still finds a way to let me know about _all_ the petty drama that’s going on in his life.

“And anyways,” Danny continues sheepishly, “Jackson really is my best friend, and I love him, but the simple truth is that he always needed me much more than I needed him. You know how that is.”

The coffeemaker beeps, and Stiles stands up to go pour mugs for them both. “Not really,” he says honestly. “I’m pretty sure I need Scott way more than he needs me. Do you want milk or sugar?”

“Both, please,” Danny says. “And I always got the impression that you two were kind of equally codependent. Like sharks and those little cleaner fish things.”

Stiles snorts, and hands Danny his coffee. “Did you just call me a cleaner fish?”

“No,” Danny says, sipping eagerly, “you and Scott are both the shark, and both the cleaner fishies. It’s a very complicated theory, very highbrow and literary.”

Stiles smiles and takes a large gulp of his own coffee, the liquid scorching his throat on the way down. “So if me and Scott are symbiotes, does that mean Jackson is like your parasite or something? Please just let me compare Jackson to a tapeworm, _please_.”

Danny laughs. “You know, I always used to think you were an annoying dickhead,” he says conversationally.

Stiles takes another sip of his coffee, and tries to figure out an appropriate response to such an offensive non-sequitur. “Thanks, Danny,” he says drily. “Great ego boost there. I really appreciate it.”

“Actually, I still think you’re an annoying dickhead,” Danny adds, voice mild.

Stiles just sighs. Things had been going so well, it was unrealistically optimistic for him to expect it to last any longer than it already had. “No, please, say what you really feel. Don’t hold back.”

“I’m not insulting you,” Danny protests. “I’m just being honest.”

“It feels like you’re insulting me,” Stiles mutters into his coffee mug, frowning petulantly.

Danny ignores him. “Look, everybody we know is a little terrible,” he says frankly. “You’re an annoying dickhead. Jackson is a whiny conceited asshole with sociopathic tendencies. Lydia can be elitist and casually cruel; Allison’s a sweetheart who doesn’t always think before she speaks; Scott is frustratingly naïve and way too much of a morning person. It doesn’t mean I don’t like them. You can like people and still acknowledge that they have character flaws.

“Anyway, that’s what I was trying to say. I used to think you were an annoying dickhead, and I still do think that. But I never used to like you, at all, and I do, now. You’re really not so bad. You’re annoying, but you’re nice. Well, mostly. You try, anyways.”

This is so unexpected to hear that Stiles chokes a little on his coffee. Danny not liking him is such a quintessential part of their relationship that Stiles really does not know what to do with this information. The lack of glaring and the mere fact that Danny was indeed at his house were pretty good signifiers that Danny didn’t hate him anymore, Stiles knew. But hearing Danny himself say it out loud made it more real, made it a concrete fact instead of a creeping hope at the corners of Stiles’ mind. Stiles knows it’s silly, to feel so delighted at so little, but he just can’t hold back a wide smile.

But he can’t just sit there next to Danny grinning like a loon, so once he’s recovered himself a little, he asks, “So if I’m an annoying dickhead, what are you?”

Danny laughs a little. “Don’t be absurd,” he says, “I can’t take apart my own personality, that would be weird. I’ve thought about it for years, and God knows I have plenty of character flaws, but I can’t put them together in a nice pithy statement like I can with other people.” He tilts his head speculatively. “But you probably can,” he observes. “What’s wrong with me, Stiles?”

Stiles had not been expecting this. “I don’t know,” he says honestly.

Danny groans. “Oh, come on,” he whines. “I was mean to you. You have to be mean, back, it’s the rules.”

“Did Jackson make those rules?” Stiles asks, distracted. “Because that would explain a lot, actually.”

“Not the point,” Danny waves a dismissive hand. “Come on, Stiles. Tell me I’m a scatterbrained optimistic fool, or a sarcastic twat with no backbone. Come on.”

“I really can’t do that,” Stiles repeats. “I’ve always kind of thought you were perfect.”

Danny freezes at that. “What?”

Stiles feels his mouth drop open. “Oh, come on,” he says. “Surely you knew I thought that.”

“No,” Danny says forcefully, “I didn’t. Nobody’s perfect, Stiles, especially not me. Don’t be ridiculous.”

Stiles sighs. “Well, obviously nobody is perfect. But you come pretty close, honestly. You’re always nice to everyone. You’re a computer genius who’s also the star goalie of the lacrosse team. You’re acing all your classes, and you’re hilarious, and you look like a literal actual Disney prince. Like, what exactly am I supposed to find fault with there?”

Danny just looks at him some more, face unreadable.

“And okay,” Stiles says softly, “remember in sixth grade, when you found me hiding under the playground equipment at recess?”

Something changes in Danny’s face then, but Stiles isn’t sure exactly what.

“I was crying because we’d just gotten my mom’s diagnosis,” Stiles admits, voice shaking. “And that was that week when Scott’s dad had pulled him out of school, and my dad was always at the hospital, and the school counselor was massively useless. And I remember just going outside and there was nobody to play with and all the swings were full, and it was such a tiny little thing but it was the last straw, and so I went and hid under the play structure and just kind of lost it. And everybody who walked by just kind of stared at me and wouldn’t come near, because they all knew about my mom; Beacon Hills is too small for secrets. But then you saw me, and you just looked at me, calm, not staring like the rest of them, and then you sat down next to me under the slide and gave me a Tootsie Roll Pop, and just let me cry until the bell rang to go back inside. And when Jackson noticed and came by to laugh at me-“

“I told him to go away and threw a bunch of woodchips at his head,” Danny finishes, looking down at the scratched surface of the kitchen table. “I didn’t know you remembered that.”

“Of course I remember that,” Stiles says quietly. “How could I forget?”

There’s a long silence.

Danny is staring into his empty coffee mug, Stiles watches intently as Danny chews on his lower lip, clearly lost in thought, until he catches himself staring and jerks his eyes away to stare out the window. The sun is fully up now, low in the sky but fully above the treetops, and Stiles realizes with some regret that they have to start getting ready for school soon or risk being late.

Stiles looks back at Danny, only to see that Danny is staring at him now. He swallows.

“Do you want to get dinner?” Danny asks abruptly. Stiles frowns in confusion.

“What, now?”

“No,” Danny sighs in frustration, “It’s like six thirty in the morning, obviously not now. I mean tonight. This evening. At dinner time.”

Danny stares at him impatiently. Stiles’ heart is pounding and it feels like his stomach is trying to leap up his windpipe and there’s a muffled roaring in his ears. His brain feels like it’s tuned to a nonexistent radio station, all staticky white noise and screeching feedback.

“Yes,” Stiles blurts, after a long minute of shock. “God, yes. That sounds awesome.”

“Glad to hear it,” Danny says. “Can I have breakfast now?” 

* * *

 

“Hey, Lydia,” Stiles says in his most charming tone of voice, shooting her a wide grin as he sits down across from her at lunch.

“What do you want, Stiles?” she sighs, stabbing viciously at her spinach salad.

“Can’t a guy just sit by a close friend for the mere pleasure of her company?” Stiles asks, faux innocent, and Lydia rolls her eyes.

“Not with that expression on your face, you can’t,” she points out. “So, what is it?”

Stiles sighs. “I need romantic advice,” he admits, and Lydia laughs.

“So you’re coming to me, of all people?” she laughs. “Might I remind you that my last boyfriend turned out to be an evil werewolf, and the one before that was a crazy lizard monster who was also kind of an asshole?”

Stiles, for the first time in his life, chooses to retain a diplomatic silence in response to this statement. “Danny asked me out to dinner,” he tells her.

Lydia smirks. “Well, that’s unexpected. Shouldn’t you be happier about this?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “I am happy,” he says, “but mostly I’m scared I’m going to ruin everything. And I don’t know why he said yes; after all, you never did.”

Lydia’s face grows hard and cold. “Is this what this is about?”

“No!” Stiles corrects hastily. “I mean, sort of – but not like you think!”

Lydia purses her lips and stabs a leaf of spinach vengefully. “Explain yourself.”

Stiles sighs. “When I was trying to get you to fall in love with me, I tried all these dramatic cheesy grand romantic gestures,” he explains. “And I’m sorry for how … not good I was about things. It was creepy and wrong and I am really, really sorry for how uncomfortable I made you. That’s not okay at all, and I’m really glad we’re friends now. Thanks for … forgiving me, by the way. I didn’t really deserve that.”

Lydia’s face softens. “It’s okay. Go on,” she says.

“So I tried all these grand romantic gestures with you,” Stiles continues. “And then with Danny I tried all the same sorts of things - big, flashy, loud things to make him understand that I’m not just messing around.

“So I’m doing all the same sorts of things that never convinced you to date me, except they’re … going wrong. I brought a half-dead cactus instead of flowers; the cupcakes were terrible. And yet even though these things are failing, they’re also … working. I mean, we’re getting dinner tonight!” Stiles sighs. “I bought you gourmet chocolates and you never looked at me twice. I almost gave Danny food poisoning, and yet he wants to go out with me? What is going on?”

Lydia rolls her eyes and stabs a cherry tomato. “God, Stiles.” She sighs. “I can’t believe you can’t see it for yourself.”

Stiles glares at her. “I am so nervous I feel like I’m about to twitch right out of my skin,” he complains, “so if you could maybe be just a little bit more forthcoming with the answers, that would be great?”

“You’re not seeing us as _people_ ,” Lydia snaps. “You think that if you check every little box on some magical list of things, people will fall in love with you. But it doesn’t work like that! You could have bought me a fucking diamond necklace and it wouldn’t have mattered at all, because I just couldn’t fall in love with you. We just don’t work together, and you can’t force things like that.

“And I don’t know what Danny sees in you, really – but clearly he does see something he likes. And that’s fine! But whether he sees something in you is dependent on you and on him and on the way you treat each other and on the way you work together. It’s in no way dependent on how expensive the flowers you bought him or how tasty the cupcakes were. That stuff doesn’t matter, when it comes down to it. It’s all about chemistry.”

Stiles smiles. “And you know your chemistry.”

“Hell yeah, I know my chemistry!” Lydia repeats triumphantly.

“Thanks,” Stiles says, “That actually helped, like, a lot.”

“Of course it did,” Lydia says loftily. 

There’s a commotion from the other side of the cafeteria, and they both look over to the source of the noise. It’s Danny and Ethan, arguing; Ethan is still sitting down, his hand held out in protest, while Danny is standing up, shouting. “I told you, we’re done!” Stiles can hear.

“But-“ Ethan says, and Danny draws himself up to his full height, arms folded threateningly across his chest, eyes snapping like dark lightning.

“I said, we’re done,” Danny repeats. “You’re keeping secrets. You won’t tell me why you and your brother miss so much school, you won’t let me visit your house, you won’t text me back or answer my calls or anything. You won’t even tell me when your birthday is!” Danny finishes angrily. “And you won’t even admit that there’s something wrong in our relationship, okay. Surely you can see that!”

“But there isn’t anything wrong!” Ethan cries, his expression hurts, and Stiles would almost feel bad for him except that he fucking hates the guy.

“Yes,” Danny spits, “There is. Tell me where you were last night and we can stay together. Otherwise, no deal.”

Ethan stays quiet, and Stiles doesn’t know what Ethan was up to last night, but he has no doubts that it was something both werewolfy and malicious.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan says eventually, “but I just can’t.”

“Fine!” Danny snaps, and storms away from the table, sneakers squeaking on the tile floor of the cafeteria, and it isn’t until he’s practically right next to them that Stiles realizes where he’s heading.

“Hi, Danny,” Lydia says easily, munching on another bite of salad.

“Hi, Lydia,” Danny responds, still breathing slightly heavily. “Hi, Stiles.”

“Hi,” Stiles squeaks. He’s pretty sure this is the first time Danny’s ever willingly sat with him at lunch. It’s a little bit surreal, if he’s being totally honest.

“So, you still free this evening?”

Stiles nods dumbly.

“Great,” Danny dimples. “Because as you might have noticed, I no longer have a boyfriend. So you can feel free to update our dinner plans from ‘friendly meal’ to ‘date,’ okay?”

“Oh my God,” Stiles says. “Um, I mean, awesome! Cool! Can’t wait!”

Lydia just laughs. “Moving a bit quick there, aren’t we, Danny?” she says wickedly. “You’ve only been single for … what, thirty seconds?”

“Well,” Danny says, widening his eyes and appearing positively angelic. “You know me. I’m a fast kinda guy.”

Stiles chokes on his chocolate milk. Lydia laughs again, forkful of salad paused halfway to her mouth.

And Danny? Danny grins beatifically before leaning in, pressing a chaste kiss to Stiles’ mouth, and walking away.

“Well,” Lydia says, looking like the cat that got the canary, “That was interesting, wasn’t it?”

Stiles just sits there and touches his lips where Danny had just kissed them. “Holy fucking shit,” he says disbelievingly, and Lydia laughs and laughs and laughs.

* * *

It’s just starting to get dark when Stiles shows up at Danny’s house for the second time that day. This time it’s not five AM, and he’s wearing a pair of khaki’s and a nice shirt instead of pajama pants. And while this morning he was a little apprehensive as he pulled into Danny’s driveway, Stiles is currently so nervous he feels like he swallowed an entire greenhouse full of butterflies.

His nerves are in no way improved by the fact that all the windows at the Mahealani house are dark and unwelcoming, and when he rings the doorbell, there’s no response at all. Stiles feels the knot of anxiety coiled in his chest tighten and twist uncontrollably – Danny had seemed so sincere about the date this morning, but lots of things could change in a few hours. Maybe Danny had changed his mind and realized he wanted nothing to do with Stiles, realized that he would be better off dating someone else.

Stiles groans and leans forward to slam his head against the Mahealani front door in frustration. But as his forehead makes contact with the shiny burgundy surface of the door with a loud and painful crack, something unexpected happens.

The front door swings open. Stiles, who had placed more of his weight than was strictly advisable against the door, goes stumbling inside with the shock of it. He finds his balance again in the middle of the foyer, and rotates, slowly, staring at the front door. It wasn’t locked, wasn’t latched, wasn’t even fully _closed_ , he realizes now, the way it should have been if Danny’s house really was as deserted as it looks.

“Hello?” he calls, and walks tentatively further into the house. It’s dark and silent, the air completely still, and Stiles instinctively just knows that there’s nobody else here. He knows he shouldn’t really be surprised that Danny’s standing him up, but something just feels off about this whole scenario; there’s a prickle on the back of his neck that can’t be explained away by simple hurt feelings or jealousy, and – well. Stiles’ instincts aren’t always exactly spot on, but they’ve gotten him this far more or less intact, and right now they’re screaming at him that something is wrong.

Stiles steps into the kitchen. A floorboard creaks beneath his feet. Stiles freezes, ceasing to breathe for a few heart-stopping seconds, waiting for the inevitable other shoe to drop.

But it doesn’t. Stiles is alone, the only person in the Mahealani house. He suddenly feels incredibly uncomfortable at intruding like this, and turns on his heel, preparing to dash out the front door and go eat his feelings in a whole pint of ice cream.

And that’s when he notices the scuff marks on the floor, notices the way the report cards and memos hang askew and rumpled on the otherwise pristine stainless-steel fridge, notices the upturned wastebasket and the scratches in the wallpaper and the other obvious signs of a struggle.

Danny might not be at the Mahealani house right now, but Stiles is willing to bet that it’s not willingly.

“Okay,” he says out loud, forcing down the panic he can feel welling up inside him, “Okay. Let’s go fix this.” He inhales deeply, exhales deeply, and sprints back to the Jeep, pausing only to close the front door behind him and also to hit Scott’s number on his speed dial.

“Hey Stiles, what’s-” Scott says, but Stiles doesn’t have time for niceties right now.

“I think someone kidnapped Danny,” he pants into the phone, fumbling with his seatbelt for a few precious seconds before giving up entirely and just starting the car.

“What?” Scott says, horrified. “Who?”

“I don’t know!” Stiles snaps, and slams down on the ignition, zooming down Danny’s driveway. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be calling you, I’d be running after him right now!”

“What are you doing right now?” Scott asks.

“Running after him,” Stiles admits. “But I don’t actually know where I’m going! So! Thoughts?”

There’s a pause, and Stiles can almost hear Scott’s face rearrange itself into a thoughtful frown. Stiles wishes he didn’t have to waste time going through Scott, but when Stiles gets anxious his mind shuts down, turning into flurries of confusion and panic, whereas stress jumpstarts Scott’s brain into overdrive, creating connections and ideas that neither of them would ever be able to think of in a normal situation.

“The twins,” Scott says abruptly, after slightly longer than Stiles would prefer. “Danny dumped Ethan at lunch today, right? It was pretty dramatic, and they didn’t exactly look thrilled with him.”

Stiles groans, because of course it’s the twins. “Great,” he says drily, and slams on the brakes just in time as he approaches an intersection. “So, where do you think they took him?”

Once more, Stiles can basically hear Scott shrug over the phone. “I don’t know. Wherever they’re living right now, maybe? The abandoned mall would make sense. And the alpha pack was annoyingly fond of the old bank. Maybe try there?”

Stiles watches the light turn green, and hesitates. The mall is five minutes straight through this intersection, but the bank is at least twenty minutes away, and in the direction he just came from. “What do you think?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Scott says frankly. “Trust your gut, Stiles. You know Danny better than I do.”

“How would me knowing Danny matter in guessing where the twins took him?” Stiles asks, momentarily distracted, and then snaps back to himself. “Right. Not important.”

Stiles really has no idea where Danny could be right now, knows it could be anywhere Scott has named or twenty other places besides. But he also knows that the twins haven’t kidnapped Danny just to have a pleasant chat with him, knows that something sinister is almost certainly in the works, knows that he might not have a second chance if he guesses wrong on his first one.

“Fuck,” Stiles curses, and slams his phone shut before performing a highly illegal U-turn and heading in the direction of the old Beacon Hills bank vault.

The whole drive there he doesn’t think about what the twins might be doing to Danny right now, doesn’t think about whether he’s guessed right, doesn’t think about whether he’ll arrive just in time or far too late. He just focuses on the road and on the bad classic rock blaring over the Jeep’s ancient speakers and on his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, and Stiles decidedly does not panic.

And so when he reaches the bank vault and sees the battered Camry that belongs to the twins parked outside, Stiles doesn’t even stop to formulate a plan. He just hops right out of his car and goes dashing into the abandoned building, so terrified for Danny that he doesn’t even stop to think for one second about exactly what he’s rushing into.

That’s his first mistake.

They’re not in the bank vault itself, which makes sense; there’s no reason for the twins to willingly enter what’s essentially a prison for their own kind. Instead, when Stiles pushes open the front door of the building, he sees Danny sitting in the middle of the entryway, tied to a chair, looking nervous but not scared.

Stiles almost rushes forward without thinking, but some sort of gut feeling tells him to hold back, and it’s a good thing that he does, because there’s Ethan, stepping out from behind a pillar.

Stiles stops breathing. He edges sideways until he’s mostly hidden behind a pillar of his own, and then he stops, and waits, and watches.

“Come on,” Ethan is saying, voice simultaneously coaxing and annoyed. “Danny, this is a good thing, I promise. You’ll like it.”

“I’ll like being a monster?” Danny says incredulously. “Yeah, right. I’m going to pass on that one for now.”

Ethan huffs in frustration. “You’ll never have heart problems again,” he snaps. “You’ll be faster, stronger, _better_.”

“And at what cost? Turning into a raving monster on the full moon?” Danny asks, tone icy. “No, thank you.”

“You’ll have me with you every step of the way,” Ethan says. “I can help you stay in control, teach you how to be a werewolf the right way. You’ll never be in any danger.”

“I don’t care about that. I’m not going to put my friends and family at risk. I want to stay human.”

“I don’t need you to say yes to turn you,” Ethan says, but his voice sounds less sure than before.

“Ethan, please,” Danny pleads, voice breaking. “If you ever cared for me at all, you won’t do this.”

“I’m doing this _because_ I care about you!” Ethan counters. “You almost died when you were younger, and then again a few months ago. When you’re human, you’re weak, vulnerable. Who’s to say that you won’t get sick, or crash your car, or, I don’t know, have a tragic chem lab accident. How do I know that you’ll survive high school?”

“How do _you_ know that I’ll survive the bite?” Danny asks, voice low and measured. “You said there was no guarantee. I think I’ll take my chances as _Homo sapiens sapiens_ , thank you very much.”

Ethan groans, and Stiles can see the angry tension in his shoulders. “I don’t trust you to stay alive as a human,” he tells Danny, and Danny snaps.

 “And that’s why our relationship never worked,” he tells Ethan, “Because you never trusted me with anything – certainlynot the truth. Everything we had was based on lies and half-truths, and that’s no sort of relationship at all.”

“But I can’t lose you, not for good,” Ethan confesses, and Stiles is startled to hear the sheer depth of emotion in his voice.

“You already lost me,” Danny points out, “I don’t love you anymore, Ethan.”

“But if I turn you, you’ll have to love me,“ Ethan declares, eyes manic, and then Danny cuts him off, eyes blazing even from where he’s tied to the chair.

“I could never love a – a murderer,” he spits out. “You can kidnap me and tie me up and threaten me and – and _kill_ me, you goddamn werewolf asshole, but I will never love you.”

Ethan makes a strangled noise of pain and rage and confusion, his nails beginning to lengthen into claws, and Stiles knows that if he’s going to make a move, he needs to make it soon.

He has no weapons at all – the metal baseball bat he’d taken to carrying around after that fiasco with the wooden one a few months ago is locked away uselessly in the Jeep. He’s starting to wish he’d carried around that dried wolfsbane Lydia had insisted upon, or that battered hunting knife Allison had forced upon him a few weeks ago, but all Stiles had in his pockets was his car keys, two dollars in change, and a rather squished pack of peppermint gum.

“Okay,” he whispers to himself, “not good,” and then Ethan roars, eyes blazing red, and Stiles leaps into action before he can stop himself. There’s another metal folding chair lying on the ground, and Stiles grabs it and then dashes out from behind the pillar, shouting.

Ethan turns to roar at him, and his eyes are red and his claws are viciously sharp, but his face is still fully human, and Stiles doesn’t know whether he’s choosing not to transform further or if he physically cannot without his brother there, but he doesn’t really care right now.

“What the f-“ Ethan starts to say, and then Stiles hits him over the head with the metal folding chair, and he collapses like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Oh my God,” Danny says, and Stiles turns to look at him, breathing heavily. “What are you doing here?”

‘”I’m here to rescue you,” Stiles says. “I thought that was pretty obvious.” He drops the chair, and moves forward to where Danny is tied up.

“I don’t need rescuing,” Danny says as Stiles works on untying his bonds. “I had this totally covered.”

“I’m sure you did,” Stiles says,.“I just sped up the process of your inevitable heroics a little. Now, let’s get out of here before Thing One wakes up, or-“

“Or Thing Two arrives,” Aiden says from behind them, and Stiles groans.

“Any chance you can hit him in the head with a chair as well?” Danny mutters, and Stiles just sighs. He stands up, holding his arms above his head. 

“I surrender,” he sighs. “Please don’t eat me.” 

* * *

 

“Wow, Stiles,” Danny drawls later, after they’ve both been tied to chairs by Aiden and his newly-revived twin and then left alone for some reason. “I’m really impressed by the quality of this rescue. Incredibly effective. You really are a true hero.” 

“Hey,” Stiles protests, “I tried, and therefore nobody can criticize me.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that,” he says. “I’m pretty sure that if you completely and utterly fail to save me from the evil werewolves in any way, shape, or form, I get to criticize you for being useless as much as I want. Speaking of which, I cannot believe none of you ever told me I’d been dating a werewolf.”

Stiles sighs. “Sorry,” he says. “We thought about it. And I wanted to tell you, I really did. But we thought that it would be safer for you if you didn’t know anything at all about the supernatural shit going on in Beacon Hills. Werewolves are really dangerous, you know? We wanted to keep you as far out of it as possible.”

Danny stares at him incredulously. “And you thought that the best way to keep me safe was to let me keep dating an evil werewolf? Oh my God, Stiles, I’ve known about werewolves and stuff for literally ages. Did you really think that Jackson wouldn’t tell me?”

Stiles stops and thinks about that one. “Oh,” he says, in a small, embarrassed voice. “Yeah, I guess you’re right about that. Oops.”

“You are an idiot,” Danny proclaims, but there’s a hint of fondness in his voice.

“Then I guess Scott and I didn’t need to arrange this whole convoluted plan in the first place,” Stiles realizes aloud. “Oh my God.”

“Wait,” Danny says with a laugh. “What convoluted plan?”

Stiles feels the smile slide off his face and the bottom drop out of his stomach as he realizes what he’s just said aloud. “Oh,” he says numbly. “Well.”

Danny looks at him and his voice grows cold. “What is it, Stiles? What did you do?”

Stiles swallows nervously, and says, “First of all, I just want to say I’m sorry. Second of all, I need you to know that, however things may have started out, I really do like you. Like, a lot.”

“What,” Danny says, voice icy, “did you _do_?”

“Okay, well, first of all it was Scott’s idea initially,” Stiles babbles. “But there is a fairly high chance that I may have, ah, pretended to be in love with you in order to seduce you away from Ethan so that you would be safe from his evil werewolf machinations.”

Danny looks at him for a long, seemingly endless moment, his face totally unreadable. Then he snorts, and the snort turns into a giggle, and the giggle turns into a full-blown laugh.

Stiles has no idea how to respond to this. “So…” he says hesitantly, “Are you cool with this?”

“Oh, no,” Danny says. “You’re not forgiven yet. I just think it’s absolutely hilarious that you would concoct such a ridiculous, hilarious, doomed-to-fail scheme when all you would have had to do to convince me was tell the truth.”

Stiles frowns at that. “It was not doomed to fail,” he protests. “It totally worked! Eventually.”

Danny looks at him, considering. “You know, you’re right.”

“Ha!” Stiles says triumphantly, and Danny goes back to giggling madly.

And that’s how Scott finds them when he bursts in through the front door of the bank a minute later: Danny laughing hysterically and Stiles sitting there guiltily, both of them tied to metal folding chairs and the Alpha twins mysteriously nowhere to be found.

“Well,” Scott says, “this is an easier rescue than I anticipated.”

“Shut up and untie me,” Stiles says, but he’s immensely grateful, and he knows Scott knows it too.

“Come on,” Danny says, rubbing feeling back into his hands. “Let’s get out of here before the twins come back.”

Scott nods, and they dash out into the parking lot.

“Hey,” Stiles says, “thanks, dude. You saved us in there.”

Scott beams at him. “Anytime, man. Sorry I took so long, I checked the mall first.”

“No problem,” Danny says. “In fact, I’m glad you took so long. Neither of us was hurt, and I learned some … important information.”

“All right,” Scott says amiably, raising a questioning eyebrow at Stiles but otherwise letting the comment go. “I’m going to clear on out before the twins realize you’re gone.”

“Good idea,” Stiles agrees, and looks at Danny. “Are we still on for dinner, or …”

“Oh, like hell are you getting out of buying me pasta,” Danny scoffs. “Come on, you can give me a ride.”

Scott gives Stiles a less-than-subtle thumbs up, and then jumps on his motorcycle and drives away. Stiles and Danny get in the Jeep. The whole way to the cheap Italian restaurant Stiles had selected for their dinner, the awkward silence in the car hangs over them. Danny fiddles with the radio, and Stiles tries to concentrate on the road while his mind is whirring at top speed, guessing and second-guessing what Danny could be thinking about.

Stiles pulls into the parking space and turns off the car, but before he can open the door to get out, Danny says, “Wait.”

Stiles turns to look at him, and Danny’s dark eyes are serious. “So, this whole thing was just some wacky scheme?”

“It started out like that,” Stiles admits, “But-“

“Let me talk,” Danny cuts him off. “So that day in the locker room, when you told me you loved me?”

“I didn’t really love you,” Stiles says.

“And now?”

There’s a long, uncomfortable pause. “I … don’t think so,” Stiles says. “I mean, I care about you and I think you’re really hot and I like you a lot. Like, a lot a lot. But I don’t think I’m in love with you. I mean, we’re sixteen. Love is a little much, really.”

Danny nods, and Stiles swears that he can see the corner of his mouth twitch upward the slightest amount. “Okay. One more question. You said it’s not just about your wacky ‘save Danny’s soul’ routine anymore, right? So when did it stop being about that and start being about … whatever this is now?”

Stiles takes a deep breath. “Um,” he begins, “this morning?”

Danny stares him down. “Really,” he says flatly.

“Okay, it sounds absurd,” Stiles says in a rush. “But everything was still some weird ploy to get you away from Ethan, until you got into my car and then fell asleep on my couch. The whole time I thought I was just being a noble hero or something obnoxious like that, and then I woke up and I thought you were gone and I was way more upset than I would have been if this was all just some stupid mission. And then I thought about it and realized I really liked you, and then I thought about what my motives had been like this whole time, and then I ended up telling you I had always thought you were perfect, and I guess that was when I realized that maybe this had been going on longer than I’d thought.”

Stiles stares at his lap, where he’s fiddling helplessly with his keys, feeling his cheeks and the back of his neck burning from embarrassment and from the weight of Danny’s gaze upon him.

“Yeah,” Danny says eventually. “Okay, I guess I’ll take that.” Stiles looks up at that, confused, mouth open to ask a silly question, and then Danny grabs the collar of his plaid shirt and reels him in for a kiss.

It’s a terrible angle; they’re awkwardly contorted over the center console, and they keep bumping their noses together, and Stiles accidentally bites Danny’s lip before he unbuckles himself and leans farther over the seat and, okay, wow, this is much better, and holy shit Danny’s _tongue_ is in his _mouth_ –

“Whoa, okay,” Danny says, and pushes Stiles back a little. “Easy, tiger. You just drooled on me a little.”

“Oh God,” Stiles says, horrified. “I’m so sorry.”

“Whatever,” Danny shrugs, and then grins wickedly. “Come on,” he says, “Dinner time. I’m not putting out unless you buy me breadsticks.”

Stiles waggles his eyebrows. “So you _are_ putting out if I buy you breadsticks?”

“No comment,” Danny says primly, “But getting to put your hands in my pants is one of the privileges that comes with being my boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Unless you have a problem with that?”

“Oh, God no,” Stiles says quickly, “Boyfriend sounds perfect. Pasta time?”

Danny presses a fond kiss to the corner of Stiles’ mouth. “Pasta time,” he agrees, and Stiles thinks that this might not be the most conventional start to a relationship ever, but it’s certainly one that he’s more than okay with.

 

 


End file.
